Chattanooga

This past weekend I was able to spend some wonderful girl time in Chattanooga with Elaine, my sweet little best buddy. I have known this chick her whole life and love her to death!! We went all over that city for sure and if it wasn't for my faithful GPS we would have definitely gotten lost. We might have gotten lost a few times with it but I'm sure it wasn't my fault. ;)

Our hotel room for the weekend!! It was pretty sweet.
Thank you Priceline for 'name your own price' and such a sweet deal!!!

I love this girl!!

Yes. We finished the WHOLE pizza. 

No calories on vacation right?

The Silver Diner at the Chatanooga Choo Choo was amazing!

Ruby Falls

Inside the Ruby Falls cave.

Chattanooga in the background

Being creative at the Creative Discovery Museum.

Entering the 'Grossology' part of the museum. 

I definitely learned more about the body than I wanted. If you know what I mean.

Ending the trip with some Ben and Jerry's. Love it!!

Y'all Come Back Now You Hear?

OK I will try to stay on top of things and start blogging more often!! My life has been a little crazy this summer. I have been able to visit a lot of people and do more things than I have seen or done in a long time! I am so thankful for the business sometimes. I am excited about sharing with you all that has been going on. Still no word in the adoption world but we are still waiting. Our paperwork has been in the Ukraine 1 month and ten days so far but whose counting. ;)

A few weeks ago we went to a going away party for our very good friends Laura, Kevin and their two boys. They were our neighbors up here for two years and we loved (and still love) them dearly. We will definitely miss them but we are excited for them as Kevin starts pastoring in Alabama.

Laura and I 

Luke, Kevin and Ken loving Josie's homemade ice cream!!

The boys loving some ice cream

Suzanna, Josie and Laura

David, Suzanna and sweet Wheeler

 The whole gang

We will miss you Webbs!! Y'all come back to visit!! :)

Fourth of July

I love fourth of July!! I love everything about it from grilling out to spending time with family and friends and all the patriotic feeling I get around that time. Maybe it is all of the Old Navy Flag tee shirts everyone wears that reminds me of how much I love my freedom. Not sure. Anyways. I drove down to Pensacola to spend the fourth with my dad's parents. Poor Ken had so much school work to do that he had to stay home so he could get it all done for his classes he is taking this summer. He is such a hard working man!!

Let me just tell you how much I love my family!! My sweet grandparents are the sweetest people on the planet and I am so blessed by their faithfulness and dedication to the Lord. I am so blessed to have godly grandparents on my mom and dad's side who continually encourage me in my walk with the Lord. They are definitely role models of godly character! Ok let me get off my soapbox and tell you about our fourth of July weekend!

My parents and sister came down and joined me in Pensacola for the weekend and we had so much fun!! My granny is an amazing cook and I definitely packed on some pounds over the weekend for sure. I went to the beach with the family and that was interesting. The oil had not hit Pensacola like other coastal areas when we were there but devastation was all around. I have grown up going to the Pensacola white sand beaches full of tourists and activity. Now the beaches look like a ghost town compared to what they did look like. You could smell the oil but I could not really tell where it was in the water.

My sister was able to ride back with me to Louisville and stay a few days!! I love her so much. We had so much fun!! We seriously tried to pack Louisville into two days.  I wish I took more pictures to document all that we did!!

Driving home from Pensacola being serious...

We stopped off at Priester's (My Favorite stopping point) on the way back and ate.

Not sure why we took a picture in front of pecans. :)

Let the Wait Begin!!

On Wednesday June 2, I went to Kinkos and mailed off the dossier!!! Yay!!! The Dossier should have made it to the Ukraine Tuesday June 8, but I am not for certain when it arrived.  So now the next step if for us to wait until our name comes to the top of the list. When it does, we will get a call saying that we can head over to the Ukraine!! The wait is hopefully only 6-8 months but with adoption you never know. It could be shorter or longer depending on a lot of things. I am so excited that everything is moving forward!! The Lord is so good!! 

 Me with Mrs. Kathy sending off the Dossier. Next stop, Ukraine!!! Mrs. Kathy has been the one to help us get everything together and sent to the Ukraine.  

The Dossier

So...my life has been in chaos for the whole month of May and up until now. Let me update you with all that has gone on in May!! You might even want to sit back, start popping some popcorn, and enjoy the ride because let me tell you, you might be sittin for a few minutes. OK, now, where do I start??

It all started with the long-waited-for piece of paper that arrived in our mailbox the first week of May. Let me tell you! I had been waiting forever feels like, for that piece of paper!! This piece of paper (known in the adoption world as the I-767C Notice of Action)  lets the hopeful adoptive parents know from US immigration whether they are accepted/declined to adopt internationally. When you receive this document, you can now start the dossier process (Dossier = a lot of paperwork that will get sent to the Ukraine). Whoo hoo!! Well we get this piece of paper in the mail and it felt like the day Ken and I got engaged. Weird, I know, but hang in there with me. It's like you are very involved in the process of dating and you know he is going to propose but you don't know when, and when he finally does, you are so excited you go crazy but try to stay composed, everyone you know gets a text or call and you cant stop talking about it. Well that is kinda what went on this day. I seriously read the thing over and over to make sure we could finally start the dossier process. What an exciting day in the Lovett household for sure!! So we got the letter on a Wednesday and that Friday we head down on the long trip to our home state to get our marriage license and then the long drive to the capital to get it apostiled. We then headed back home that Sunday. Fun times!

 

Where we picked up our marriage license.

Getting our marriage license apostiled!

Two apostiled copies of our marriage license, check. 

While we are here we might as well take pictures of the state capital!!

Documentation that we were at the capital. 

We were able to meet my dad for a shake on the way home. 

Eating breakfast before all of the festivities begin at the BEST restaurant in town, Spot of Tea!!

Eating at Blue Gill with my brother-in-law (Greg) sister-in-law (Karen), 

niece (Annabelle) and nephew (Greyson). I love them!

We also made trips to the doctor to have checkups for the medical form, sent off a variety of paperwork, and oh yeah and remembered in the process of all the craziness that I had not changed my last name on my passport when we got married. I was like great!! This is very important and takes the longest amount of time to get sent back to us!! We were even told to make sure this was one of the first things we sent off for so when the time comes, we will be ready to send all of our paperwork off. We were even going through all the checklists of  what we needed to do and every time we got to the passport, we would skip over it. I was like of course I had my passport, duh, it's right here. Well, we learned really quick that it was going to set us back a few dollars in order for us to have it in time to send everything off. When we had all of our paperwork together, this is what we had:

1. Petition for adoption from Ukraine
2. Letter of obligation
3. Medical statements
4. Doctor's license
5. State police clearance documents
6. Employment letters
7. Marriage license
8. Certification of BCIS
9. Home Study
10. Home study license
11. Social worker license stuff
12. Passport copies
13. Powers of attorney
14. Certified copy of our rental agreement
15. PVA (property value ___) records
16. Most recent income tax forms
17. Interpool clearance document

Each group of paperwork then needed to be notarized, authenticated, and apostiled. Authentification of the document meant each notary had to be checked, by the county clerk, to state that the notary was indeed a recognized notary. Then once you have all of it authentificated, you head to the state capital's Secretary of State to get everything that has been authentified and checked, apostiled at the office. So once you get everything notarized, it is then authentificated and finally apostiled. Well I kind of forgot a step in the process.  I ended up in the capital without everything being authentificated, whoops, so back home I went. The next week I went to apostile everything and I was super excited to have everything done!! Whew!

The state capital where all of our documents were apostiled.

Adoption Fit Bands are here!!!!

I am SUPER EXCITED to announce that the adoption fit bands are here!!! The AMAZING ladies at Worthyoftheprize.com have made these AWESOME fit bands for Ken and I to help raise money for our adoption!! The Bands make great key chains and are a wonderful gift idea!! They come in two sizes, the half-loop and the regular. You can also choose what color of webbing you want as the background color as well. :) For all you teachers, moms and hard workers out there, lanyards can also be purchased. The best part about this is that 1/2 of every purchase goes to help us raise money for our adoption!! To find out more about the bands and how you can help us raise money to bring our Ukrainian children home, go to Worthyoftheprize.com. To get to the post, click on adoption bands to the left of the blog and scroll down to the post from May 11th. To make things easier, Erin and Mary Jo have come through again and created a Pay Pal button to make your orders easier!! It is located to the right of this blog. You can choose between a fit band, half-loop or a lanyard and the webbing background color!! Below are pictures of the bands.

The Derby Mini-Marathon

Pre-Mini Pasta Night!!

Tonight was an amazing time of getting together and hanging out with all of the runners and supporters for the half-marathon!!! The night before you run a half or full marathon, pasta is a MUST HAVE. It is energy for your body and soul...or so I've heard! ;) Lets see...about fifteen to twenty people showed up at our little apartment to eat some grub and boy was it good! We had two types of pasta (Plain spaghetti and chicken tortellini bake...my all time fav!), bread, salad, dessert, some yummy southern sweet tea, and for those trying to remain on the healthy side we had water. I'm not really sure why I just listed out our whole menu but there you go. Now you can feel as if you were there in the moment...or maybe not. ; ) After dinner the Lovettorleaveit fan club decorated some pretty inspiring posters for the runners to be encouraged by as they ran. They turned out super cute!! I will try and post pictures as soon as I can get them. My camera died so I was unable to take any.

We are SUPER thankful for all those that are running and are in the fan club!! God is SOO good! The event would have been VERY hard to get through without them!

God is so good!

Sarah

One week until the Mini!!

So...The Derby mini marathon is in ONE week!!! Bah! Hopefully I will not have to be scraped off the road once I cross the finish line. I am pretty excited about the race though!! For starters It has been so amazing to see people come around and encourage Ken and I in the adoption process. That has been such a blessing in ways they will never know. It is also so amazing to see how the Lord provides! We have been so blessed by everyone's continuous support in prayer and giving!! On a lighter note...training for the marathon has done wonders to my physique!! the old saying is true (No pain, no gain) and I can testify! Training for a half-marathon tough but oh boy you can eat what you want and still look good!! Well, I have learned by trial and error that you do not eat junk food the day of your long run. That equals a no fun run for sure!! Before Ken and I started training, we could barely run a mile. Now, miraculously we have trained up to ten miles. I remember when 5 miles seemed like a lot. Now it seem like a drop in the bucket!! Crazy!!

Well in the adoption realm, we have no updates. We are just waiting for our home study to pass through immigration. Please keep praying for our children in the Ukraine and that God would protect them, that they would have enough food to eat, and that someone will love on them and give them good attention.

Sarah

Spring in in the air!

Well life has been crazy over the past month or so. Spring is in the air and people want to visit!! I guess they don't like our winters, being from Alabama and all. In the past two months, my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and my sweet niece and nephew came to visit for a week, Ken and I went home for Easter, and my mom came up for a week!!! Whew! We had so much fun!! Here are some pictures of what we have been up to for the past few months.

Greg, Karen, Annabelle, and Greyson
came to visit from Mobile!
(3/21-3/25)

I love this little guy!!

Eating at Lynn's Paradise Cafe in Louisville with
Karen, Greg, Greyson, Annabelle and Ken.


Trying to take a self-portrait with my favorite niece.

Greg's meal was on 'Throwdown' with Bobby Flay
...It was more of a letdown...


Easter with the Fam!!
(4/2-4-4)

McVay Family picture from left:
Matthew, Emily, Mary, Me, Ken, Mom and Dad.

Matthew and Emily got engaged this weekend!!

Lovett family picture. Well
Minus Greg, Karen, Annabelle, and Greyson


Future Sister in the middle!!!

Mom Comes to Town!
(4/6-4/15)

I love my mom!!

So apparently Lynn's is the place we go when people come to visit...
Mom and her very good friend Jo.


So... my work(composed mostly of volunteers) had a Derby fashion show/luncheon as a fundraiser and I got drafted as a 'model' due to lack of interest from the volunteers. 'Luckily' mom and Laura were in town and got to see this momentous occasion. Mom was so proud...
Mom, Me, and Laura.

Until next time...
Sarah

Prep for the Derby Mini!

So this week has been very crazy with trying to get packets of information out to all of our runners for the Derby Mini Marathon. Wait! I have not told you about our fundraiser! Let me back up and tell you a little about all that is going on!

At the beginning of the year, We (Ken and I) along with some very good friends (Nathan and Sarah) started brainstorming about different fund-raising ideas. Well, I am still not sure who exactly came up with the idea, but it came about so that is all that matters. :) Anyways, we came up with the idea of running the Derby Half-Marathon on April 24th to raise money for the adoption. We figured that if we could 'convince' a few runners to run with us, we could get sponsors to sponsor each runner per mile or maybe a one time gift. Well as we started getting the word out to our friends and Sunday school class, the idea caught on and we received a ton of positive feedback!!

Ken and I are so excited and are so thankful at how the Lord has provided so much support through our church, friends, and family! We now have 18 people running with us gathering up supporters. The Lord is so good!! We thought we might be able to get 5 maybe 10 runners to do the half marathon with us. We are so grateful for those running with us and for their dedication to run the half marathon and to gather up supporters!!

So tonight Ken and I have been working on a packet that will go to each runner to give out to their supporters. For each supporter the packet will contain a letter from Ken and I, a letter from Lifesong, a prayer card and a send in card to let the runner know the commitment. Two pieces of paper and two postcards seem like overkill but we want to keep everyone informed!! Lifesong has allowed us to go through them so that our supporters will be able to write checks tax-deductible. This is a Huge blessing! Lifesong has also said that they will consider us for a matching grant up to $4,000 but will not be able to do so until our home study is completed. We are praying for our home study to be completed quickly and we are trusting the Lord to provide. The Lord has already provided $5,000 towards the adoption. He is so good and we are so thankful!

That is all for tonight!! I will hopefully soon post pictures of events going on in the Lovett household!!

The Homestudy

So I realized that I haven't posted anything for over a month and decided that it was time to start typing. A lot has gone on since the beginning of February. For starters, or last home study meeting was on February 3rd. Yay! That was very exciting to have that out of the way! Some of you may be wondering, OK that's great but what exactly is a home study? Well, before we get to the home visit, lets talk about how you start out before the visit even takes place.

Ken and I first sent in an application to the home study agency recommended to us by our adoption agency. After we sent in the application and were accepted, they gave us a list of every kind of paperwork we needed to send in. We sent in birth certificates, a marriage license, autobiography, financial information, medical information, background checks, references and a few other things. After all of that was in order, we were ready for our home visit. Now, back to the home study part.

A home study is, in my opinion, the easiest part of the whole process. It is where a case worker (already assigned to you) comes to visit your house and makes sure it is a safe environment for your soon-to-be children to live. Our case worker first visited us January 27th and asked us questions about our background, how we met, how we grew up, what we have done throughout our life, about our marriage and how we handled happy times and stressful times and other basic questions to get to know us better. I think we were only supposed to meet for an hour, but Ken and I like to talk so we accidentally talked with her for like two hours. :)

The next meeting took place a week later on February 3rd. During this meeting, we talked more about how we would raise the kids, how we would incorporate their culture into our culture (that was interesting), our background in working with children and/or being around children, and other kinds of questions on how we would parent our children. After we talked to her about the kids, our case worker did a home tour to make sure we had room for two children and that it was a safe environment. I think the only part we 'failed' was that we didn't have a first-aid kit. I think it was in the car...or we might not even have one. I can't remember. With all of that said, Ken and I thought the home study was going to be more intense than it was. After it was all over we were like, really? Was that all? I mean Ken and I even role played how we were going to answer "big" questions we thought she might ask. It was so fun and a whole lot easier than we thought it was going to be.

We are now in the process of waiting for the home study to be finalized. When the home study is finalized, it will be sent to USCIS (the US immigration office) to be approved. When they approve it, we will then begin our longer 'paper chase' for the dossier (The paperwork that we will send to the Ukraine). Ken and I are really excited about all that is going on and I hope that you will join us and pray for us as we journey through the deep waters ahead.

The Adoption Journey

One of my favorite questions to answer is, "Why do you want to adopt?" I just love it...get it Lovett...OK never mind...moving on. Well before I answer that question let me tell you how we even got to the amazing adopting stage in life.

So Ken (my amazing husband) and I have always been open to adoption from day one of our marriage. We both love kids and what a great way to add to our family of two!! While we have always been open to the idea, we were not sure how we were going to pay for the whole thing, so we kept the idea on the back burner of our minds. Ken and I moved to Louisville for him to go to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in July of 2008. We started meeting people our age and on our budget that have adopted. The wheels started turning. We then began asking our friends how they were able to pay for the process of adoption and got some amazing feedback. Did you know that there are grants, employee benefits and tax credits out there for adoption? We were excited to find this stuff out!! We started really praying if adopting should be the next step that we take in life. We knew that God would provide but we were still not sure how we could afford adoption. Y'all if you peeked inside our checkbook at the time, it was not a pretty sight!! The numbers coming in almost matched the numbers going out. Ken was looking for a full time job but we were having no luck. So on August 8, 2009 we decided to forget about the cost and take a leap of faith into the murky waters of the unknown. Boy it was scary making that decision at first but we knew God was in control and whatever happened, happened. Did you know that four days later Ken found a full-time job as an IT director, applied the next day (Wednesday), and got the job on Friday. God is so good!! We were so excited and had complete confirmation that adoption was the next step in life the Lord had for us. We have also been very blessed to have wonderful friends and family support us through this next step in life.

Now getting to my favorite part, the part about why we want to adopt. We want to adopt for many reasons but, one of the biggest reasons is how adoption plays a huge part of our lives as well. As Christians, we have been adopted out of a life full of darkness and despair and into a life filled with hope and eternal peace. We know that our Father will never leave us or abandon us but provide for us what we need. God, in his never ending love, chose to adopt us into his family despite our problems, our shortfalls, our weaknesses and the sin we commit. Ken and I desire to picture this love through adopting and caring for orphans. We also want to give children an opportunity to grow up learning about Jesus, experience love, hugs, a childhood, plenty of food, safety, fun opportunities, and someone to call mom/dad. We are excited about this journey and what God has in store for the Lovett family!!